Wednesday, December 16, 2009

This is a cute gag with a fun picture that I'm sure some of my readers enjoyed. Pretty much anything featuring a "spork" is humorous on some level: Mr. Spork of the Starship Enterprise, born with a silver spork in your mouth, etc. But it wasn't until the day after the cartoon ran in papers and a reader emailed me that I realized my grievous error.

When I wrote this cartoon I confused the term "spoonbill," which normally refers to certain birds, with "duck-billed," which refers to platypuses. I knew the difference but because my brain is overworked and underpaid, I made a mental error in the beginning of the joke writing process and never gave it a second thought.

The next day another reader wrote to correct me, as well. I thanked both of these kind folks, both of whom were gentle, polite and informative, and told them that the kind of lunks that typically read Bizarro wouldn't know the difference anyway.

Readers of this blog are excepted, of course. I'm sure all of you caught my error and am quite certain that none of you are lunks.

As a biologist, I immediately knew the gag didn't work as a pun, but as a visual gag it's terrific, so I forgave you instantly. The roseate sporkbill gag would have worked just as well, but I'm guessing the general public doesn't know a roseate spoonbill from a northern shoveler. Maybe publish that one in a birdwatching magazine?

Dan, I've read the whole string and still don't have an issue with the origin. It must be the local temperature which is - 20C here in Calabogie. Now, that should set a number of your followers to searching!